Allocative Grants

Allocative grants, also known as formula grants, are funds allocated to districts using a formula based on specific populations or needs. More details on allocative grants can be found in the School Allocation Memorandum (SAM), issued by the Division of Financial Planning and Management (DFPM).

If you have questions about these grants please contact your NYCDOE Borough Office Budget Director. You can find his or her contact information on the main grants page.

Allocative Grants

Attendance Improvement/Dropout Prevention (AIDP) Discretionary Allocation

AIDP funds support student services that address barriers to academic progress. This includes attendance, family-related, and discipline problems. Services may include school guidance and counseling, attendance improvement efforts, and coordination of services provided by other agencies.

Attendance Improvement/Dropout Prevention (AIDP) and Tax Levy (TL) Attendance Teachers

These funds support attendance teacher positions. These funds may not be used for any other purpose. Attendance teachers service multiple schools. They are supervised and coordinated by attendance supervisors in Field Support Centers.

Attendance Improvement Dropout Prevention (AIDP) Students in Temporary Housing (STH)

AIDP STH programs must be geared to the provision of services which increase the enrollment, retention, attendance, and educational success of homeless children and youth. For purposes of this funding, ‘homeless’ includes any student who resides in temporary housing, shares housing of other persons due to loss of housing or economic hardship (aka doubling up), or stays in areas designed for short-term recreational stays due to the lack of adequate living accommodations. 

This funding supports mandated services and programs for students living in temporary housing (STH). The Office of Safety and Youth Development (OSYD) manages STH services that are provided at both schools and shelters.

STH field-based staff work in shelters across the city in order to address the needs of students in temporary housing. The STH field-based staff members serve as liaisons between shelters and schools to provide mandated services under the federal McKinney-Vento Act and provide intervention support and attendance outreach services.

These positions are scheduled on the assigned school’s table of organization. Timekeeping records are maintained at the assigned school. The budget allocations to schools cover wages and fringe benefits and are based on the work schedules of each staff member as approved by the STH liaisons in OSYD borough offices. The PS budget allocations to schools may only be used for the field-based STH staff assignments. Accruals due to staff turnover will be removed from the school budget and reallocated to support other STH program needs.

STH liaisons in OSYD borough offices support schools in collaboration with Field Service Centers to meet the needs of students and families in temporary housing. These liaisons (also known as STH content experts) oversee the work of the STH field-based staff and work with schools and other shelter staff to support the STH population. There is also a small STH central team that is responsible for the program citywide.

Pre-Kindergarten Programs

Pre-K Centers

The DOE provides NYC families access to high quality Pre-K programs. The purpose of these programs is to prepare children for success in school and life. The Division of Early Childhood Education (DECE) works with families across the city to help children become independent learners and problem-solvers.

Pre-K Centers serve only 3-K and Pre-K students. Each center has a team of leaders, teachers, and staff. All staff are DOE personnel.

The programs are located either in standalone facilities, or in district school buildings. They provide full-day services (6 hours, 20 minutes) and serve 18 children per class (or 20 in special cases approved by DECE).

NYC Pre-K Thrive is part of ThriveNYC; a citywide mayoral initiative to support the mental health of all New Yorkers. NYC Pre-K Thrive will increase opportunities for children to realize their potential by building a foundation of social emotional learning skills during the critical stage of early childhood development.

Program Quality Standards

The DECE works to make sure that every Pre-K for All program in NYC is high quality. To that end, the Pre-K for All Program Quality Standards (PQS) defines the components of high-quality Pre-K programs. The PQS helps teachers, school leaders, and families support children.

One goal of these standards is to help students gain the knowledge and skills described in the New York State Prekindergarten Foundation for the Common Core (PKFCC).  The PQS also creates shared expectations for all Pre-K for All programs in New York City. This way, everyone involved in a Pre-K child’s education understands what a high-quality program looks like. During the school year, the DECE provides times for school communities to learn more about the PQS.

To help children gain the skills outlined in the PKFCC, the Pre-K program is supported by state and local tax levy funds.

Title I

Title I funds are federal "pass through funds" because under Title I the federal government provides financial assistance through State educational agencies (SEAs) to local educational agencies (LEAs) with high numbers or percentages of poor children. In New York City, the LEA can be the Department of Education as a whole; or the individual school districts.

LEAs target the Title I funds they receive to public schools with the highest percentages of children from low-income families. Please see the Family Income Inquiry Form Data Collection PowerPoint under the Professional Development section for information on how the poverty percentages are determined. 

Unless a participating school is operating a schoolwide program, the school must focus Title I services on children who are failing, or most at risk of failing, to meet State academic standards. Schools enrolling at least 40 percent of students from poor families are eligible to use Title I funds for schoolwide programs that serve all children in the school.

The Every Student Succeed Act (ESSA) reauthorizes the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) of 1965, effective school year 2017-2018. Allocations of federal dollars must utilize funding methodologies mandated by the reauthorization. For FY 2018, the methodology modifies the distribution of Title I funds to public and non-public schools based on eligible low income students.

ESSA requires a participating LEA to provide eligible children attending private elementary and secondary schools, their teachers, and their families with Title I services or other benefits that are equitable to those provided to eligible public school children, their teachers, and their families. These services must be developed in consultation with officials of the private schools. The Title I services provided by the LEA for private school participants are designed to meet their educational needs and supplement the educational services provided by the private school. In New York City, the Office of Non-Public Schools are responsible for this aspect of the law.

The USDE approved New York State's ESEA flexibility renewal request for the 2016-2017 through 2018-2019 school years. However, due to the enactment of ESSA, NYSED will be issuing guidance to transition from the provisions of the approved ESEA Flexibility Waiver to the new ESSA.

Title I consists of two parts: Title I Part A or Title I Part D.

• Title I Part A supports Title I Target Assistance Programs, Title I School Wide Programs, Title I Parent Involvement, Title I Programs for Neglected Students, Title I School Improvement, Title I Priority and Focus, and professional development; and 
• Title I Part D supports students who are incarcerated or institutionalized. See the Title I Neglected and Delinquent page for more information.

Additional information can be found below:

• Title I Part A
• Title I Regulations
• US DOE Office of Elementary and Secondary Education (OESE)

Title I Target Assistance

1. children not older than age 21 who are entitled to a free public education (i.e. grades K-12).
2. children identified by the school as failing, or most at risk of failing, to meet the State's challenging student academic achievement standards on standardized assessments and/or teachers’ judgment.

Title I Schoolwide Program

Title I is designed to help students served by the program to achieve proficiency on challenging State academic achievement standards. Title I schools with percentages of low income students of at least 40 percent may use Title I funds, along with other Federal, State, and local funds, to operate a "schoolwide program" to upgrade the instructional program for the whole school. Schoolwide programs must use instructional strategies that are research based and implement parental involvement activities. 

• A school may consolidate and use Title I funds together with other Federal, State, and local funds, in order to upgrade the entire educational program of the school in support of its school wide program plan.
• SWP schools are not required to maintain list of targeted students. 
• All teachers of core subject areas must be highly qualified.
• The school wide program plan is the school’s comprehensive educational plan.

Eligible Schools

All Title I TAS schools are eligible to apply to become SWP; except for schools in in a borough where the borough poverty cut off is below 40%. If a borough poverty cutoff is less than 40%, a school's poverty count must be at least 40% in order to apply to become SWP.

Schools that elect to implement a Title I Schoolwide Program must address the following components: 

• A comprehensive needs assessment.
• Schoolwide reform strategies.
• Instruction by highly qualified staff.
• High-quality and ongoing professional development for teachers, principals, and paraprofessionals.
• Strategies to attract high-qualified teachers to high-need schools.
• Strategies to increase parental involvement through means such as family literacy services.
• Plans for assisting pre-school children in the transition from early childhood programs.
• Measures to include teachers in the decisions regarding the use of academic assessments.
• Activities to ensure that students who experience difficulty mastering the proficient or advanced levels of the academic achievement standards.
• Coordination and integration of federal, state, and local services and programs.

See the invitation to participate in the Schoolwide Program Planning Initiative in the iPlan Portal for guidance. Note, you will first need to log into iPlan.in order to access this information.

Title I Priority and Focus

As per the ESEA Flexibility waiver, funds are to be reserved for Priority and Focus schools in support of allowable programs and activities approved by NYSED. The Title I reserve is based on the Title I borough appropriation, the number of identified schools in need of improvement as per NYSED’s accountability designation, and the resulting borough percentages.

Reserves for non-Title I Priority and Focus schools will be based on their poverty count as per the Title I student data in School Allocation Memorandum (SAM).

The allocation must support programs and activities detailed in the School Comprehensive Educational Plan (SCEP), and the allowable activities that appear in Appendix A. Schools will also need to identify the allowable activities with each item scheduled in Galaxy, as indicated below.

School Comprehensive Educational Plan (SCEP)

All Priority and Focus Schools are required to develop a School Comprehensive Educational Plan (SCEP). The SCEP is aligned with the Framework for Great Schools and the NYSED Diagnostic Tool for School and District Effectiveness (DTSDE), and will inform the District Comprehensive Improvement Plan (DCIP).

The required school plans should be based on the findings and recommendations contained in the most recent NYSED Integrated Intervention Team (IIT) Review, NYCDOE Quality Review, Central Led Review (CLR), School Self-Reflection (SSR), and other needs assessments.

Parent Education (formerly Parent Engagement)

NYSED has updated the terminology for “parent engagement” to “parent education.” The list of parent education allowable activities is the same as last year, and the list is included in the attached appendix under the Framework for Greater Schools: Strong Family-Community Ties (with DTSDE Tenet SOP References).

Priority and Focus schools will receive an additional Title I allocation for parent education activities. The set-aside is in addition to the parent involvement set-aside included in Title I SAM. The primary objective of this additional set aside is to enable greater and more meaningful parent participation in the education of their children. NYSED, in consultation with the New York Comprehensive Technical Assistance Center, has identified Partnership Standards for School and Families which are aligned with the National PTA Standards for effective parent engagement. Based on these consultations, NYSED has created a menu of allowable activities to meet the set-aside requirements, which focus on:

Fostering Communication:

• School and families engage in an open exchange of information regarding student progress, school-wide goals and the SCEP, and support activities.
• Encouraging Parent Involvement:
• Parents have diverse and meaningful roles in the school community and their children’s achievement.
• Creating Welcoming Schools:
• Creating a welcoming, positive school climate with the commitment of the entire school community.
• Partnering for School Achievement:
• Schools engage families in setting high expectations for students and actively partners with parents to prepare students for their next level.
• Collaborating Effectively:
• School community works together to make decisions about the academic and personal growth of students through school-wide goals. Schools foster collaborations with community-based organizations to create a vibrant, fulfilling environment for students and families.

These Partnership Standards are also consistent with the sixth tenet of Family and Community Engagement of the DTSDE and the Framework for Great Schools Element for Strong Family and Community Ties.

Non-Title I Priority and Focus schools will receive the same per capita through tax levy funds.

Parent education funds must be scheduled and expended exclusively for parent education services.

Public School Choice

School districts must provide all students in identified Priority schools with the option to transfer to another public school in good standing, and provide/pay for transportation to the receiving schools. A child who transfers may remain in the receiving school until the child has completed the highest grade in that school.

Expanded Learning Time (ELT)

Consistent with its approved ESEA Flexibility Waiver, NYSED requires that Priority Schools offer a minimum of 200 additional student contact hours as ELT in addition to the current mandated length of 900 hours of instruction per year (25 hours per week) in grades K-6, and 990 hours of instruction per year (27.5 hours per week) in grades 7-12. NYSED describes ELT activities as enriching educational experiences that happen outside of the traditional class­room and blend skill acquisition, relationship building and fun to foster academic and social-emotional growth in students. Summer learning, afterschool programming, and extended-day ELT models, when well-implemented, play a critical role in supporting students in all grades and ensur­ing that they graduate from high school, college and career ready.

ELT Program Description:

• All Priority Schools and Renewal Schools must complete the ELT Program Description section of their SCEP or RSCEP (Section VII) to demonstrate how they are meeting these requirements.
• Supplemental Educational Services (SES):
  • The DOE no longer provides Supplemental Educational Services (SES). Priority Schools may choose to provide academic remediation or ELT from an array of contracted vendors. If a school chooses to contract with a vendor to provide ELT, they can use the Multiple Task Award Contract (MTAC) utility to get an appropriate vendor based on their needs.

Galaxy Requirements

As Priority and Focus funds are scheduled, schools will need to select one of the activity descriptions using the “Program” drop-down field in Galaxy. This will demonstrate compliance with allowable activities, as described in Appendix A: List of Galaxy Program Dropdown and Priority and Focus (PF) Allowable Activities. The scheduling of funds must be aligned with the corresponding goals and action plans for each Framework for Great Schools element as detailed in the SCEP.

Title II, Part A

The purpose of Title II, Part A is to increase the academic achievement of all students by helping schools and districts improve teacher and principal quality and ensure that all teachers are highly qualified. This allows multiple uses of the funds for professional development, incentives etc.

Title IIA Supplemental Proficient

The Title IIA Supplemental allocations give priority to schools where classes are in excess of 20 pupils and academic performance is poor. The first priority is to use funds to reduce class size in a grade. If space is not available to form additional classes, funds may support push-in teachers to supplement the instructional program. Priority must be given to reducing class size in general education settings.

Please note that all teachers funded by this allocation must have state certification and licensure standards as per ESSA.

Guidelines for Calculating Class Size Reduction

Classes created through the Federal Title IIA Supplemental program may not include classes that would have been organized absent the program. The overall total of teachers must be greater than the number of teachers required by the contract. For example, a school with a grade 1 enrollment of 60 students, under the UFT Collective Bargaining Agreement, would be required to organize two classes. If the school funds only two grade 1 teachers, no Title IIA Supplemental funds may be used. The school could fund a third classroom or fund a push-in teacher for the two contractually required classes. Note that contractual class sizes limits are 25 for Kindergarten and 32 for grades 1 through 3.

There are many situations that could result in different class formations, such as organizing bilingual classes or inclusion classes. The goal is to maximize services to students while meeting federal requirements.

As evidence of compliance with funding source guidelines, schools must make the following documentation available if requested:

• list of staff funded by the program
• class rosters for all classes on the grade
• evidence funded teachers meet the NCLB definition of highly qualified

Note: Federal Title IIA funds are provided to increase student academic achievement by improving the quality of teachers and principals. The program can be carried out in multiple ways including: increasing the number of highly qualified teachers in classrooms (i.e., class-size reduction); increasing the number of high quality assistant principals; and increasing teacher and principal effectiveness. It is the expectation that schools will continue to prioritize use of Title IIA funds to reduce class size and pupil teacher ratio.

Title III

The major goals of Title III are to help ensure that English language learners, including immigrant children and youth, attain English proficiency, develop high levels of academic achievement in English, and can meet the same challenging State academic standards that all children are expected to meet. Title III holds States, LEAs, and individual schools accountable for meeting these goals.

Title III Limited English Proficient (Subsection from above)

Title III LEP provides supplementary funding to enhance services to ELLs, including ELL immigrant students, in the areas of English language acquisition and content-area achievement. It is also intended to increase ELL access to educational technology. This allocation is based on the prior year ELL counts.

The Division of Multilingual Learners has established the following Title III guidelines: 

1. Title III supplemental services for ELLs must include direct instruction and high-quality professional development that is “of sufficient intensity and duration to have a positive and lasting impact on the teachers’ performance in classrooms.”
2. Professional development activities should be well-planned, ongoing events rather than one-day or short-term workshops and conferences. Activities must be used to support language development, English and native language instruction, high academic achievement in math, and/or other core academic areas.
3. Parent engagement activities are required. Parent supports must ensure that there are appropriate translation and interpretation services to meet community needs.

Title III supplemental instructional services must be based on student need. Services provided in this program must be supplemental, and should complement core bilingual and ENL services required under New York State Education Department Commissioner Regulation CR-154. Direct supplemental services should be provided through before, after, and Saturday programs. Teachers providing services must be certified bilingual education and/or ENL teachers. Note, Plans for Title III LEP cover two years. Schools should be able to better manage these resources to ensure timely service delivery to ELL pupils. 

Priority areas for the use of Title III LEP funds are as follows:

• Digital and print curriculum to supplement learning in response to COVID-19 remote instruction.
• Extended day programming (e.g., before school, after school, Saturday program) to provide targeted, small-group instruction and credit recovery support.
• Developing new and/or enhancing programs for the following:
  • Newcomers
  • Students with Interrupted Formal Education (SIFE)
  • Longterm ELLs
• Improving teaching and learning in core subject areas, and native language and English teaching
• Enriching parent engagement activities and securing appropriate translation and interpretation services
• Providing students with supplemental guidance
• Implementing strong student supports to increase graduation rates
• Integrating ELLs in secondary school reforms

Title III Immigrant

Title III Immigrant funding supports school programs that provide immigrant youth with high-quality education and assistance with transitioning into American society so that they can meet the same challenging State content and academic standards that all children are expected to meet. The program must provide direct services to immigrant students.

The initiative provides additional support to specific districts identified as experiencing a substantial increase in immigrants.

These funds can be used for activities that provide enhanced instructional opportunities for immigrant students. Please note that immigrant students are not necessarily English Language Learners (ELLs) and ELLs may or may not be immigrants. For the purpose of this funding, immigrant students are defined as individuals who were not born in any U.S. state (this includes the District of Columbia and the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico); and have not been attending one or more schools in any one or more states for more than three full academic years (the months need not be consecutive).

Permitted uses of these funds include the following activities:

• Identification and acquisition of curricular materials, educational software, and technologies to be used in the program.
• Family literacy, parent outreach, and training activities designed to assist parents in becoming active participants in the education of their children.
• Support for personnel, including teacher aides who have been specifically trained, or are being trained, to provide services to immigrant students.
• Provision of tutorials, mentoring, and academic or career counseling for immigrant students.
• Basic instructional services directly attributable to the aforementioned school districts, including costs for additional classroom supplies, transportation costs, or other costs directly attributable to such services.
• Other instructional services that are designed to assist immigrant students to achieve in elementary schools and secondary schools in the United States, such as programs of introduction to the educational system and civics education.
• School activities, coordinated with community-based organizations, institutions of higher education, private sector entities, or other entities with expertise in working with immigrants, to assist parents of immigrant students by offering comprehensive community services.

Priority areas for the use of this part under ESSA - Immigrant Funds are as follows:

• Digital curriculum to supplement learning in response to COVID-19-required remote instruction. Extended day programming (e.g., before school, after school, Saturday program) to provide targeted, small-group instruction and credit recovery support.
• Implementing strong student supports to increase graduation rates.
• Community-based and school-based programming (e.g., before school, after school, Saturday program) to strengthen partnerships between immigrant families and schools.
• Developing new and/or enhancing existing programs for newcomers (meeting criteria defined above).
• Supplementing the opening or growth of Transitional Bilingual Education programs and/or Dual Language programs serving immigrant students.
• Professional learning on meeting the needs of immigrant students and effective instructional practices.

Schools must use the funds to support their immigrant students by developing a plan that integrates the above into the following three components:

• Direct Instruction Supplemental Program for Immigrant Students
• Professional Development that bolsters the instructional practice of teachers of immigrant students
• Parental Engagement Activities that support parents of immigrant students

For more information, please visit the Title III InfoHub.